It’s safe to say I’m not a Peggy Flanagan fan.  She was the ultimate diversity hire – an ultra progressive (by 2018 standards) “minority” woman (we’ll come back to that) to help drag “moderate” Tim Walz over the DFL’s finish line.  She’s been the most visible Lieutenant Governor I can recall in Minnesota history – during Walz’s first term, I think Flanagan was listed as a co-equal, and appeared in the background of all the Governor’s social media (which ended when Flanagan started making noises about running against Walz’s third term attempt befere…well, you know).  

I think the fact that the DFL is going all-in on torpedoing Angie Craig to support P-Flan is the best thing to happen to the GOP in years, in spite of itself; it gives the GOP the best chance it’s had to win a statewide race since the 2010.  

But there’s one criticism she’s gotten, and has resurfaced, that I’m going to sit out:

In my freshman and sophomore years of high school, if I hadn’t had German, Civics, History and music, I’d have likely had a worse GPA.  I was bored stiff.  English class was always 50% literature, which I loved, and half grammar, which bored me stiff.  I knew how to talk and write, for crying out loud.  

In 10th grade I had Geometry.  My six-weekly grades were C, D, F, F, F and F.   So I musta not gotten Geometry – right?

Then I got a “B” on the final, which salvaged a “D” for the year.  

Anyway – I went on to 11th and 12th grades, and had probably a 3.7 – I cared about the classes I was taking, I’d started working at the radio station and so finally had an identity outside of “greasy-haired cello-playing athletically-inept nerd”, and things just started clicking.  

All by way of saying a number one acquires between ages 14-18 doesn’t define an adult. 

A lifetime of being a “public service” leech does.  So I’ll stick with that.  

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

President Trump is threatening to send 10,000 troops to Iran, boots on the ground,  which moderate Republicans fear would be crossing a “red line” and would cost Republicans the midterm elections.

The fear is that if we lose seats in the midterm elections, then we won’t have power so we won’t be able to get Presidential appointments confirmed or judges confirmed or the Save Act passed or DHS funded.

Which would be different from now, how, exactly?

Maybe the problem is not lack of Congressional power but lack of willingness to use what power we have. That problem won’t get solved by backing down from Iran. 

Joe Doakes

 

Yep. I think we’re past the point where timidity is the prescription for the midterms.

Conventional wisdom and a lot of history say that the party that doesn’t control the White House always get a boost during the mid-terms.  

More conventional wisdom says that if the Democrats just avoid the mistakes of 2024 and dial back the crazy, they’ll do much better electorally.  

But what if the Democrats can’t dial back the crazy?  Or more to the point, what if something came along to make it impossible for them to tamp the crazy down?

Like, say, ICE dismantling a “sanctuary city” with enough brazen force to compel the left to go full Portland, 24/7?

Is the ICE surge the ultimate psyop?

Governor Walz appears to be losing his mind:

Because it’s all Trump’s/Joe Thompson’s fault, of course. 

By the way – watch for a concerted campaign by Big Left – or even just Walz’s crowd – to paint him as the victim in all this:

I try to stay on an even keel, to give people the benefit of the doubt. 

But I’ve never wanted to see someone hauled out of the Capitol in handcuffs – or, given this video, maybe a straitjacket – this badly in my life. 

SCENE:  The headquarters of the Democrat Farmer Labor Party, in Saint Paul. Chair Richard CARLBON is convening a meeting of key Democrat activists, including Tim WALZ, Keith ELLISON, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, Avery LIBRELLE, Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, And Evan Micah BRYAN.  

WALZ:  Damn.  This damn fraud damn scandal is damn causing a damn lot of damn trouble. 

CARLBOM:  We’re not on camera, Tim. 

WALZ:  Doh.  I’m a knucklehead.  This fraud scandal is causing a lot of trouble.  

BIRKENSTOCK:   So what do we do?

CARROLL:   Rebrand “finding fraud” as racist?

BRYAN:  We have been doing that.  It’s not working quite like it used to.  

ELLISON:  We can tell the media who’s boss. 

CARROLL:   On it.  

CARLBOM:  No bad ideas, folks.  But I think I’ve got it.  

(The room hushes)

CARLBOM:  We run as the anti-fraud party!

WALZ:  Damn yeah damn we damn tell people damn damn damn damn

(BIRKENSTOCK rises, takes Walz’s hand, leads him from the room)

BRYAN:  You mean, go at all these allegations of seven years of fraud while we controlled the executive branch and most of the Legislature by saying we were always the party that fought fraud. 

CARLBOM:  Yep. 

ELLISON:  But what about the Somalis?

CARLBOM:  Pfffft.   We throw them under the bus.  

LIBRELLE:  Isn’t that a little bit cynical?

CARLBOM:  It’s a lot cynical.  That’s what I do.   We burn one group of immigrants, we bring in another group of migrants.   Palestinians are hot right now.  

(Nods and murmurs of assent around the room)

CARROLL:  Hm.   Kind of Orwellian.   

CARLBOM:  Of course it is.  And it works.  It’s always worked before.  Minnesotans just aren’t that smart.  

(Muted assent around the table)

BRYAN:  People are pretty stupid.  

CARLBOM:  That’s our unofficial motto.  OK.  Make it happen!

and SCENE

FFS.  Hasn’t this state suffered enough?

Look, I love the pillows.  I have several.  Make pillows.  

But Mike – who came in third at the State Central Committee straw poll with something like 15% of the vote, for now – is backed by Action 4 Liberty, which is to conservative politics what Minnesota Gun Rights are to, well, gun rights: a group that weaponizes ignorance to make more money from defeat than from victory.   

Somone make it stop. 

I’m not sure what Walter Hudson’s political plans are.   

But this particular video reminds me of Reagan’s “A Time For Choosing”:

It’s a difference choice – good vs. evil, as opposed to freedom vs. communism.  

And so maybe not all that different at all.  

The top-line number seems depressing, if you’re a Republican. And the DFL wants to double that down while it can:

I know, I know – it’s Survey USA. They oversample metro voters and Democrats.

It’s the second-tier result that’s interesting; on the question of whether he should run for Governor again:

He’s underwater among independents.  I think that’s a first; for some reason, “independent” voters have had a thing for the little Mussolini.  

So you can expect a huge PR effort to burnish his image as he tries to make that two year jump from 2026 to 2028 in some kind of office.  

Here’s the biggest takeaway to me:  you can ask youself who those 58% of idiots are.  Even if you write off a few percent because it’s a SUSA poll, that still means his approval is way above water.  

Which means that the “shut down the government and stick with pure conservative principle” crowd –  I’m looking at you, Action 4 Liberty – would be swimming up the PR stream from the word go, trying to convince voters of the merits of a government shutdown when they still don’t see what national voters plainly saw.  

I’m just the messenger.   

Is there another way to look at this?

He’s gonna run for Governor again:

Of course, the little gnome will spend the next 18 months dodging debates.  But his Veep bid last year, and his newfound rise to national prominence, have given people a whole lot more material. 

As has the governor himself:

The little gnome never gets tired of “Nazi” references, does he?

I bet he does not see (badda boom) the problem with this…

After six years in office, four of them plagued with massive scandals including the largest Covid-aid scandal in the US, in absolute numbers (forget about per-capita), Governor Walz is swinging into action!

For those unfamiliar with government – say, who never watched “Schoolhouse Rock” as children – the Governor is in charge of the executive branch of state government.

Which means it’s his job to enforce the laws of the state, along with the rest of the executive branch. It’s literally one of duties, defined in the state’s Constitution.   He’s supposed to be aided by the Attorney General, who is the state’s lawyer, and the State Auditor, ostensibly the state’s bookkeeper.  Walz, Keith Ellison and Julie Blaha already have not only the power, but the duty to be dealing with the fraud that happened on their watch.

And fraud is already illegal.   There is literally a law for that, as evidence by the fact that the Department of Justice is currently prosecuting Minnesota fraud cases. 

The only need for a “legislative package” is to try to deflect some responsibility for the feeding frenzy of this past four years to the newly (and temporarily) GOP-controlled House of Representatives, and evade his and the MNDFL’s culpablity for the four years the Governor spent taking selfies eating Pronto Pups and standing by liked a hog that’d been smacked on the head with a hammer as his voters looted and pillaged a billion dollars or more from the state treasury.

The media will try to help him with this evasion.

And if the “conservative media” in this state ever had a mission in life, making sure they can’t enable that evasion is it. 

So, here’s a picture of Governor Walz with Lt. Governor Flanagan, taken back during the “trifecta”.

She was inescapable. She was in every photo with Walz. Her name may have been more prominent on their campaign signs.

The media actively dolled her up:

The camera and their photo selection didn’t do half bad by her.

At times it seemed as if the local media were just as much her PR firm as Walz’s. 

And now – this:

And this:

That – combined with the Rochelle Olson/Ryan Faircloth piece we talked about earlier – makes it look like Walz is trying to distance himself from Flanagan.

Why?

Because polling isn’t showing “DSA whackjobbery” is doing well?

Or because they’re both going to be running for Governor?

Tim Walz is back

And he’s pissed. 

It seems a bit of a squabble has broken out between his camp and Lt Governor Flanagan‘s:

Walz was asked in a recent interview if there was tension when he returned given Flanagan would have succeeded him as governor if the Harris ticket had won.

“No,” Walz responded. “There would be time to figure out all that afterwards. I was solely focused on making sure the state of Minnesota was going, we were getting things done. The lieutenant governor was here doing the work that she needed to do, reaching out to community.”

Others who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Walz team was not pleased at steps Flanagan had taken to assume the governorship, conferring with potential key hires and preparing for a possible run herself in 2026. “If the people of Minnesota want me to continue to serve, I am absolutely open to that,” Flanagan said at the State Fair in August.

The Walz camp was especially irked because Flanagan had tapped Walz’s gubernatorial campaign fund without authorization for some work, multiple sources said.

Walz is claiming to know nothing, NOTHing, about the matter. But I’m not the only one thinking something’s amiss:

Steven Schier, Carleton College political science professor emeritus, said it’s not uncommon in Minnesota for the governor and lieutenant governor to maintain a distance from each other. “What is notable are the timing of this and the apparent reasons for it,” Schier said. “Peggy Flanagan and Walz were joined at the hip for six years and now they seem separated by their individual ambitions.”

Joined at the hip is an understatement. I rarely recall seeing Lieutenant Governors consistently appearing with the Governor before Walz. One rarely saw Tina Smith or Mae Schunk or Joan Growe outside the odd campaign event or the State of the State.

But Flanagan was in every photo this past six years.  They had hundreds of shots of the two of them cavorting about the Fair, her feeding him corn dogs and playing fetch with him.  Her name was arguably more prominent than his on their campaign signs:

And the optics – literally – are absolutely strange on this.

More later today.